


Hawking Radiation

by loveisacage



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-06-03 04:49:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19456687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveisacage/pseuds/loveisacage
Summary: Feeling grounded to this place, to her and this unconventional family, has pulled him so far out of space he can no longer feel the uninhabitable chasms of darkness that used to follow him at every turn.





	Hawking Radiation

It’s instinctual the way they gravitate a little closer toward each other every time they’re together after the dance. He stands flush against her shoulder, their backs up against her kitchen sink while they share a cigarette. She sits with him, bodies huddled together on her front porch watching the kids run around in the snow—close enough to feel the heat from his solid frame warm her icy skin. 

After everything they’ve been through it seems natural for the two of them to seek that small comfort out in one another; a desirous need to close that extra inch of distance between them when they can. As if that little bit of extra space will somehow be enough to fill a much larger void. A gaping hole punctured by despair and loss, a fear still real enough to bite at them and keep them up at night. 

They move forward because they have the kids and lives and jobs to return to. But they’d both be lying if they said it hasn’t been a challenge. Yet somehow they figure out how to navigate it together, a partnership they’ve forged into something neither one of them can really explain. 

After the dust around them settles, Joyce is the first to offer her support with El. The quiet way she approaches Jim, with such care and genuine concern, makes his brittle and bruised heart beat just a second faster than he’s used to. 

“She should be able to see her friends. And I know you worry about her safety, and so do I, but can’t we work something out for them? So that they can see each other?” She bites at her bottom lip, pushes her thumb against it long enough to distract him. “Plus, you know, I’d like to see her, too.”

He smiles at Joyce then, big and open, lets her words fill him up with something—a feeling he’s not sure either one of them are entirely ready for.

“You offering to let us hide out here?” He questions, not wanting to ask Joyce for more than what she’s offering.

Hopper knows Joyce well enough to know that she’ll ask for what she wants and that she isn’t afraid to tell him when he’s way off base. She has always had an uncanny ability of telling people off while keeping a huge smile on her face. He’d always admired that about her—even when they were younger. 

“Well, allowing the kids to parade El all over town is out of the question, but they do need somewhere to go. It… it’s not much. But it just seems like a good fit.” 

He doesn’t know how to respond to her. Because before he can stop himself his brain and his heart have twisted up her words so tight that he isn’t sure how to untangle the mess he’s made. He’s not capable of sorting through his emotions without laying them all bare in front of her. They do fit—he wants to tell her—that in some insane way the hollowed out pieces of their equally shitty lives somehow seem to perfectly connect. 

But any semblance of words die out on the tip of his tongue. He pulls out a cigarette instead. 

“Come on, Hop,” she nudges as she moves a little closer to him, “Or is hanging out with me and a hoard of rowdy kids one night a week too much for you.” 

“Yeah—no, it’s not too much to ask,” he smiles as he slips the smoke between his lips, flicks at it with his lighter until he sparks a small flame.

He’d been making quiet jokes to Joyce the last few days about their newly acquired tribe of teenagers and how they seem to follow them at every turn. That in the days after the demo-dogs and the closing of the gate, the quiet nights they’d spent with El and Will had quickly turned into all out events. Mike couldn’t keep himself from seeing El, then Jonathan and Nancy started hanging around (for the kids, they said) and soon after that, Dustin and Steve and then Lucas and Max were joining, too. It was easy to play off at first—they all kept coming back under the guise of helping the Byers to get their house back in order. But as everything found itself in working shape after only a week or two, the kids became more melancholy, not knowing how to keep showing up—but needing to anyhow—just to be around each other. 

Hopper understands the feeling. As he looks over at Joyce he knows beyond certainty that the past month—hell the past year—would have been miserable without her. He shakes his head at the thought, unsure of how he got to this place. His messy uneven life of lonely nights fueled by booze and pills and meaningless sex has been turned completely on its head into something else entirely. Something equally messy and complicated but also good and real and—god, was he happy? The feeling is so foreign to him he can’t fathom a reasonable response. 

He pulls a long drag of his cigarette before offering it to her.

“That sounds like exactly what we need.” 

—————

Winter feels like it lasts forever, the cold permeating into every corner of their lives, biting at them as a frozen reminder of the slow passage of time. But the kids are resilient. Hopper and Joyce lament over the way the two of them seem to hold onto things, carry the enormous weight of their fight with the unexplainable all while the kids seem relatively unaffected. The two of them eventually decide that they are content in their shared burden, if only because it allows the kids some reprieve. They collectively breathe a little easier every time the kids make them laugh or entertain them with a story from their adventures. When Hopper and Joyce are in close proximity of one another, the memories of pain and feelings of terror and helplessness seem to fade. Not gone, they may never be gone—but it’s better, somehow. 

“You still having nightmares?” Hopper asks her one night, a month into the new year. 

He can see the ache behind her eyes, knows her well enough to see that she’s just barely keeping it together. It must have been a rough night. The two of them sit at her kitchen table nursing coffee cups while the kids sip hot cocoa in the living room. Someone is throwing little marshmallows at El and she’s laughing.

“Yeah, still having them. But I’m okay,” Joyce says, sipping on her drink. 

El squeals with laughter again and they share a warm look, shared smiles slowly spreading across their faces at the sound. 

“You were right, though. It gets a little easier.”

The corner of his mouth quirks up softly at Joyce’s words. He moves his hand a little closer to hers on the tabletop, lets their pinky fingers brush together. Something in her eyes makes him brave and before he can talk himself out of it he’s hooking his pinky slowly around hers as he looks into her eyes a little bit longer than he knows he should. 

—————

When springtime finally blossoms into warmer air and eternal sunshine it’s a most welcome change. The kids were beginning to go a little stir crazy cooped up in their houses while the cold weather refused to dissipate. But Hopper invites them up to the cabin on weekend afternoons to see El, lets them play games and keep her company while he works. He’s been adding on to their little home in the woods; a much too small a space for a growing teenage girl and her overprotective adoptive father. He wants the place to feel like home to her and less like some boarded up old shack she’d been unable to escape. So when he isn’t at the station or spending time at the Byers’, he’s been at the cabin making the two of them a real home; someplace they could both get excited about. 

When he told Joyce about his remodeling plans, it struck him as odd the way she’d completely tensed up. When he pressed her on it, she told him she was just worried about the two of them being all the way out in the woods alone.

Despite her worries, Joyce offers her support anyhow. She brings him a six pack and a carton of cigarettes late one night after he called her lamenting that his home improvement project was way too much to take on by himself and that he’s completely and totally in over his head. When he mumbles some sad comment about maybe not being good enough for El, Joyce hangs up the phone and without hesitation makes the drive out to him.

After helping him up off kitchen floor where she finds him brooding, Joyce reminds him softly with a hand on his chest that he is a good father—despite his penchant for taking on too much all on his own. In this particular case it’s large home renovation projects with little more than some basic carpentry knowledge. 

His eyes light up as Joyce reassures him and she earns a shy smile. Joyce seems content in the way he doesn’t try to argue with her.

After Hopper promises her he’s going to put a call in to Larry West—a guy in town with a landscaping and home building business—they share a smoke out on the old porch steps. Joyce is staring up at the stars and he’s suddenly struck by the thought that he’s never really seen her in the moonlight like this, shallow light bouncing from her cheekbones. He could swear he was looking at the same girl he knew a million years ago. 

Joyce takes a long drag of her cigarette. She blows smoke up in his direction when she finds him staring at her; makes him laugh through a cough as she catches him off guard. But she lets him look at her a while longer, smiles at him something fierce before returning her gaze back to the sky. He doesn’t think he could look away from her for a moment, not even if he tried. She looks peaceful, more herself than he’s seen in awhile. 

When he finally rights himself, he asks her, “Dreams still keeping you up at night?”

“Sometimes. Not so much so anymore,” she says quietly. 

After she considers him for a moment she moves up a couple of steps to share his, laces the fingers of her free hand through his.

“Thanks for asking. You’re a good man, Hop.”

He’s not sure he believes her. He tries to shake off the feeling in the pit of his stomach when he realizes just how badly he wants her and yet how much he stands to lose. Hopper takes a long drag off his cigarette and when he looks up at the sky again it’s like his stomach has bottomed out. He hadn’t been lying to El when he said he destroyed everything good around him. Even the feeling of Joyce warm and real against him, rubbing the pad of her thumb across the back of his hand can't change that. 

He closes his eyes and tries to shake the feeling away, but the darkness pulls at him—threatens to swallow Joyce whole if he isn’t careful. 

—————

In the summer, things begin to shift and they all seem to find their footing again. Jonathan turns 18 the last weekend in June and the kids throw a big party for him. It’s loud and lasts all damn day but they’re all laughing and happy— it’s good. They feel normal. 

After cake and ice cream, some of the kids head out to the backyard to toss a ball around while Hopper offers to help Jonathan and Will install some new stereo equipment in their bedrooms. When he emerges a little while later and makes his way back towards the living room, he hears small sniffles and then a quiet sob from the other room. He almost bounds down the hall at the familiar sound before a quiet voice stops him in his tracks.

“Whatever it is that’s bothering you sweetie, you can tell me,” Joyce says. 

Her voice is calming and though he’s stopped himself before turning the corner, he can picture the way Joyce is comforting the girl. He fights the urge to join them, but thinks maybe they deserve some time to talk alone. Eleven has been quiet lately, more so than usual, and she hasn’t opened up to him about why. He hopes maybe this means she’ll open up with Joyce. 

Hopper can’t force himself to leave them completely, though, as he knows he probably should, so he just lurks there at the end of the hallway.

“I...don’t know,” he hears El cry. “I’m just...confused.” 

“Confused about what, honey?” 

He hears the genuine concern and care in Joyce’s voice and his heart cracks.

“I… I don’t know who am. I want to be Eleven but sometimes, I get over...whelmed,” she sounds out the word on her tongue, takes a breath. “I wish I never knew those bad men. I just…I just want to be normal like everyone else.”

“Hey, come here,” Joyce calls to her, and Hopper can imagine her wrapping the girl up into her small frame. 

“It’s okay. Sometimes it is hard—figuring out where you belong and who you want to be. You don’t have to feel bad about that. What happened to you—those bad men who took you away from your momma, they took away the life you were supposed to have with her. It’s okay for you to be confused and angry about that. Hell, I’m angry about that.”

“They named me Eleven,” she says, stoic, trying not to cry again, “The bad men, we were just numbers to them. Maybe… maybe I shouldn’t be Eleven anymore.”

“Oh sweetie, I think I understand. But you are more than just a number. Do you hear me? You are so brave, and kind, beautiful, and a good friend. We never would have found my Will without your help. And you didn’t have to do that, you didn’t have to help us. But you did, even though you were scared. And you saved him. And then you saved all of us.

“Eleven may be a number that the bad men gave to you, but it’s also a part of you and of who you have become. And that’s a good thing. It doesn’t mean that you are bad, because you are not. Do you hear me? You are so, so good.”

Hopper lets his back sag against the wall, head tipped back with the weight of it, can feel both rage and heartache spread through him as El cries. He’d been pressing her about school registration these past few weeks. Nancy has spent the better part of the year tutoring El and with summer in full force, the new school year loomed imminently. Hopper had insisted that she’d have to make a decision on what name she wanted to go by at school. Jane—he’d told her—was the only option.

He’d only wanted it to be an easy transition for her, didn’t want kids giving her a hard time or asking too many questions about the new girl in school named Eleven. But in his frustration he may have been a bit hot headed, may have shouted at her something about not letting her be a goddamn number. Jesus— he just wanted to protect her, make sure she was living the life he promised for her. One where she wasn't poked and prodded in some lab. He hadn't meant to cause her an existential crisis. Parenting a teenager has not been easy and he’s still trying to figure this whole thing out. Sometimes he forgets that El is, too. 

He’s about to go to her, apologize for still managing to get it so wrong, when he hears her speak up.

“And if I don’t know if I want to be Jane?” She sniffles.

“Well, Jane is the name your momma wanted you to have. But that life with her… We can’t change the past, even if we want to. All we can do is move forward and make the best of what we do have. If you don’t see yourself as Jane, then that’s okay, too. A name is important, sure, but it’s not more important than who you are.

“If you need some time to think about what that means for you, we will all understand. If you’re not happy with either name then we can just come up with something else. After everything you’ve been through you deserve to be anyone you want to be. But I will tell you something. Your eyes light up when those boys out there call you El. And that is who you are to us. Not a number, and not a girl who’s lost, or a girl with powers. But a sweet, wonderful person that is a part of this weird little family, okay?”

“Okay,” she says, in that quiet but resolved way that she does. Like she needs time to process all of the information she just received, but she understands.

“Joyce?” El’s little voice questions. He hears Joyce hum in response and El continues, “You’re a good Mom. Will and Jonathan are lucky to have you.”

“Hey. I’m here for you, too. Anytime. You can tell Hop to drive you over in the middle of the night if he has to.”

Hopper can hear her shout that last part a little louder in his direction so she must know he’s there. He panics briefly, wondering exactly when she’d felt him lurking and if she’ll be angry that he invaded them in their private moment. But as he turns the corner into the living room and sees the two of them, cuddled up on the couch, Joyce’s arms wrapped around El, he finds it very hard to focus on anything else. 

“You okay kiddo?” He asks, running a hand through El’s growing mop of curls, his large thumb wiping away the wetness under her eyes.

She nods, face still mashed against Joyce’s chest, “Yes.”

He sits down on the couch next to Joyce, leans in close to whisper a quiet thank you in her ear. When Joyce turns her head around to face him, he hasn’t backed away and her breath catches at the sight of him there, so very close. He searches her eyes for something, and Joyce—to her credit, holds his intense gaze. Her eyes flicker down to his lips and back up in an extremely brief but deliciously mesmerizing way. He feels light headed and without thinking his body is suddenly leaning closer, breath heavy, eyes still locked with hers.

“Eleven!”

Hopper and Joyce startle away from each other at the sound, breaking eye contact to see that Will has made his way out of his bedroom. He calls for El to join him and the rest of the party in the backyard.

”Let’s go!”

El makes a move to stand, begins untangling herself from Joyce’s arms but then moves back in quickly to hug her once more. Hopper hears El whisper a quiet thank you to Joyce as she pulls away. She runs quickly through the kitchen after Will and then he and Joyce are alone. 

Hopper isn’t sure what to do next. Talking about anything other than the kids is territory they don’t cross into. Like some sacred ground they walk around with care but don’t dare have the courage to disturb in fear of unearthing something they aren’t ready for. As if they haven’t already lived through some ridiculous version of that metaphor these past few years anyhow. He wants so badly to try to kiss her again, no interruptions. So he places his large palm, hot on her thigh, and pulls her closer to him.

But suddenly the kids are piling loudly back into the kitchen for god knows what reason and he’s lost her full attention. He’d be more angry if he weren’t so goddamn content. He moves his hand away, settles back into the couch comfortably against her.

“No more dreams?” He asks, hooking an arm over the back of the sofa instead, looking into her eyes again with something softer this time. The deep pull of desire flaming out in his gut.

“No more bad dreams,” she confirms, drops her head to his shoulder.

“That’s good.” He moves his large arm around her tiny frame and pulls her closer. “That’s really good.”

—————

It isn’t until the early fall when Hopper finds himself staring at her (not so subtly) as she waves off the kids through the front door that he really thinks about saying something to her. But then Joyce is shouting to the kids to drive safe and to come straight home when they’ve finished and he thinks better of it. Maybe he shouldn’t risk ruining this thing they have. This real and unbelievably right thing—even if he does want more. 

Movie night was long over and the other kids had scattered but Nancy and Jonathan had offered to take Mike, Will and El out for some late night ice cream. Nancy had promised to stay in the car with El, while the boys ran inside for the sweet treats. Hopper still had a mind to argue about El’s safety, but they were coming up on a year and Joyce had been after him to ease up a little. He scoffs most days, that particular response coming from her of all people. But school was starting in two weeks and he knows he’s been more tense than usual.

After softly closing the front door Joyce joins him on the couch, turns her whole body to face him. She pulls her knees up and stretches one arm towards him over the back of the sofa. She hangs her head, picking at something invisible on her jeans with her other hand. She’s quiet for a long time and he studies her, waiting for her to come out with whatever it is she wants to say but she won’t meet his eyes.

“What’re you thinking so hard about over there?” He asks, knowing that with Joyce he should tread lightly, but not so much so that she can shrug him off. 

She’s quiet for a long time and all he can do is take in the soft features of her face; fight the urge to reach out to her. He does his best to come to terms with himself about why he hasn’t been brave enough to really talk to her about how he feels. He hasn’t exactly been subtle, blatantly desperate even, about his want to share time and space with her. She hasn’t acknowledged it and that is mostly his fault, he knows—but she must at least have an inkling. 

In all honesty, he’s just been terrified of dragging her into something she isn’t ready for and ruining something that’s already so good. They say so many things, share space like this so often, but perhaps the choice between having this—undefinable as it is—or having nothing at all is what makes him keep his feelings to himself. 

He doesn’t want to drag her into his black hole. The problem is, he hasn’t felt much like one in so long. He’s conscious of the fact that the reason behind it has everything to do with Joyce and this weird life they’ve fallen into. Feeling grounded to this place, to her and this unconventional family, has pulled him so far out of space he can no longer feel the uninhabitable chasms of darkness that used to follow him at every turn. 

“You want the truth?” she says slowly. 

“Why, you been lyin’ to me lately Byers?” he quips, fights the urge to push her bangs back from her face so he can really look her in the eyes.

“No, you know me too well for that.” She says, then after a beat, “I was thinking...about you, actually.”

“If you want me to stop having a turn picking the rental on movie night, you can be honest with me about that you know.” 

He smiles and she manages a small laugh. Although his movie choices over the past few months have been nothing to write home about, he knows that’s not what this is about. But he jokes with her, wants to offer her an out anyway. He can see the way she’s suddenly all twisted up. 

“I’ve been having nightmares again.” She says on a breath and closes her eyes with it, as if to will them away with the sheer force of her confession. “Nightmares about that night, at the lab. I can’t stop replaying what happened, only—“

But Hopper cuts her off, the guilt rising up like bile in the back of his throat. 

“I shoulda done things differently that night. If I could go back and change things, if I could have been the one who… I’d never let things happen the way they did. Joyce, really, I’m so sorry.” 

“In my nightmares it is you,” she confesses, staring up at him with dark eyes. “I watch you slip away from me, night after night, and there’s nothing I can do to save you from those things. And when I wake up, I can’t breathe. I… I sit there in the darkness trying to convince myself that it isn’t true, that it was all just a dream. And when I can finally separate real life from my nightmare, the only strength I can find is from repeating to myself—thank god. Thank god it wasn't you, Hop.” 

She’s tries to hold her emotions back from him but a tear slips through, a betrayal of her feelings hot against her skin. He’s not sure if she’s ever been this vulnerable with him. About the kids, sure. They spend so much time talking about them and how they cope with everything they’ve lived through. But she never really confides in him how she feels—most certainly not how she feels about him. 

“A very sweet man died that night to save us and all I can think about is the relief I feel that it wasn’t you. What kind of monster does that make me?” she asks as her voice cracks.

She cups a hand to his cheek but then shakes her head at that, like her confession is this mortal sin, something that has been burning a hole deep inside of her for god knows how long. She gets up from the couch then; waves him off. Like it’s too much for her to keep talking about but she can’t find the words to tell him to just forget about it. 

“You are not a goddamn monster!” He shouts after her, following her up from the couch and into the hallway. “Jesus Joyce, how long have you felt this way?” 

He means how long has she been letting this guilt eat her up inside, but she misunderstands him. 

“How long have I had feelings for you? I don’t know! Probably since—

“—What?” Hopper interrupts. Of all the things he thought she’d say to him, this was not anything close to what he’d been expecting. 

“Oh, jesus, Hop, don’t stand there acting all surprised. You— you know,” Joyce argues as she shakes her head at him. 

“I don’t know anything, because you never talk to me!” He argues, raises his voice a little in his surprise at her confession.

“We talk all the time!” She pushes at him, makes him wonder if maybe she says it just to aggravate him.

When they were together in high school, Joyce was so very good at pushing at him. Finding a little crack to fill her way into before opening up and utterly destroying him from the inside out. He’s not at all surprised to find she’s still that way with him. Hopper has never felt this way in his relationships with anyone else. Arguing with someone to the point that the frustration on the tip of your tongue could be used to bite back, harsh words that could hurt—yes. But with Joyce the frustration seeps deeper inside of him, endears her even more to him. They used to bicker with one another like this when they were seventeen and it feels so goddamn familiar he’s overwhelmed at the thought of it. 

Once, after they had broken up, she’d screamed furiously at him for letting Chrissy Carpenter call her a whore in front of the entire junior class—even though it was Joyce’s choice to move on. And when he refused to force his new girlfriend to apologize, Joyce had backed him into a corner and stuck her tongue down his throat just to prove Chrissy’s point. 

Joyce was always pushing at him and he liked it. 

Heat spreads like fire underneath his skin, desire pounding through his veins.

“Not about us,” he pushes back. “We don’t talk about us.”

He doesn’t want to start a knock down drag-out fight with her, but he’s suddenly struck by how goddamn much he’s missed this and he can’t stop himself. 

“There is no us, Hopper!”

She’s more than frustrated with him, can barely stand to look at him now and he doesn’t know why. It makes his blood boil and spread through him desperately as it races to his pulse points, threatens to surround his heart like a vice. He knows he’s been in love with her for a long while now. Or maybe he never really stopped loving her. Regardless, he’s been resigned to the fact that she may never really feel the same way about him. But after their almost kiss a few months ago, and now this…

So keeps his eyes on her, forces her to make the choice. She must see it, see something (love or adoration or surrender) in his face, because in the next moment she’s pushing at him, shoving him away from her with all she has. 

“Don’t you get it? I’m a fucking disaster, Jim. I don’t want you anywhere near me!” she screams and turns away from him, shoulders falling with the weight of her own words as she moves past him for her bedroom door. 

He could leave it, let her walk away having ended this on her terms. But something flames within him. He has always allowed her the power in their relationship, and god help him, he enjoys it. But he isn’t going to let her win on this. 

“Hey, no! You listen to me. This life—it is a fucking disaster! A real goddamn shit show. You and me and these kids, we’ve all been through hell. But you, Joyce, you are the one thing that is right!” 

He raises his voice at her, screams back at her because he’s always been good at that too, matching her in ferocity—in anger. But he deliberately punctuates his last few words; slows them down in hopes that she’ll really hear him. He’s got his large hands on either of her shoulders, he thinks maybe the weight of him will center her. But she won’t meet his eyes.

“Damn it will you look at me?” he shouts on a breath, “At least acknowledge that you can hear what I’m saying to you,” Hopper snarls. 

“I hear you! But this is not… you and me, this is not something.”

“The hell it isn’t!” He shouts, but she shakes her head at him. 

“Fine! We’re not something!” He acquiesced, “but this nothing with you has been a hell of a lot more than anything I ever thought I could have. After everything we’ve been through...,” he sighs, rubs a hand over his face as his thoughts drift off and when he looks at her he thinks she follows.

After losing Sara, he’d willingly burrowed deeper into the dark chasms of loneliness. But Joyce has done what she always had, found a way into his life, driving him utterly crazy and given him a reason to keep going. 

“I have feelings for you too, Joyce. And I won’t let you push me away. Not this time.”

“Oh that’s rich,” she’s got venom in her words now, but she’s finally looking at him. “Go ahead and dredge up my past mistakes as if my life isn’t one glaringly huge reminder. High school was twenty five years ago, Hopper! Don’t tell me that you’ve been waiting this long to really let me have it!”

“I’m not trying to start a fight with you about—god, you think I’ve really held a grudge for this long because you broke my heart in high school? I can’t believe this! Jesus— you are so frustrating!” He yells, then runs a hand through his hair, moves away from her a little.

This woman is going to be the end of him. 

“Oh I’m frustrating? And you think you’re not?” She yells back. “You are an angry, loud, egotistical son of a bitch! You know? And you’re everywhere! All the time! And I can’t… I can’t lose you! Don’t you get that?” 

And just like that she’s finally let him have the real truth, and again, it isn’t at all what he’d been expecting.

“I’ve made peace with all of my other mistakes Hop, but driving you away now is not something I can live with. Before was… we were so young. And I was stupid. But now I… I don’t know if I can do this without you.”

Her whispered confession hits him hard, stark in contrast to the way her shouting had simply fueled his desire. Everything about them is messy, but it doesn’t matter. The broken parts of his heart have filled in with the discarded parts of hers and there’s no reason he should fight to separate them now. He knows beyond doubt he would do anything for this woman. And he’s going to make sure she knows that. 

“Joyce, you can do anything. I don’t know if you know this, but you’re kind of a badass,” he tells her. He remembers the way she’d come to find him that day in the tunnels, the blind faith and determination she has poured into everything they’ve gone through during the past couple of years. 

“I don’t know if I want to do this without you,” she hisses, but her body softens just the slightest bit at her own confession.

She takes another breath and then, “I know I don’t want to do this without you, Hop.”

She’s still breathing heavy, still looks like she might kill him. But as he steadily holds her gaze for the first time since they’d started their bickering, he sees something else in her eyes, too. 

Oh. 

She wants him. 

And with that his mind is more than made up. 

“I’m in this, Joyce. With you. I followed you to hell and back and I would do it again. And again.” 

She lets out a deep exhale and shifts her body uncomfortably. He can see her wrestle with it, like a part of her wants to make the jump with him but she’s still holding back.

“I’m not going anywhere. This is the only place I want to be,” he assures her. “With you and… and our tribe of teenagers.”

She smiles at that, and he feels her moving closer to him then—she doesn’t fight him when he does the same.

“How do you know we won’t destroy each other?” She says on a heavy breath, brings her hands up to tug on the open vee of his collar so that he has to step in closer.

“I don’t, but… just think about it,” he says, using his broad body to move her backwards and up against the wooden panels of the hallway. The air is suddenly heavy as the tension pools thick between them. “We’ve already kinda jumped past the hard part and right into married with children in this relationship.”

“You really think married with kids is the easy part?” She asks him quietly and they share a solemn look. Then, “I guess that at least explains our lack of sex life, huh?” she quips, smiles up at him and there’s a light in her eyes again. 

“Joyce, did you just admit out loud that you wanna sleep with me?” 

“Ha— I think you know as well as I do that I hopped on and then right back off that train a long, long time ago,” she teases. 

But then she’s flicking her eyes away from his, down to his lips and back up again, before pulling the corner of her lip between her teeth. He has to clear his throat before he can think of a witty retort.

“I’m better in bed than I used to be,” Hopper tells her. 

“I don’t remember you being all that bad.”

She’s just flat out flirting with him now. He can’t take it. 

“I never said bad, just that I’ve improved. I think I could show you a good time,” he challenges, his large body surrounding her. He brings his hands down to her hips, holds himself there. 

“Oh, well, with the size of that ego I don’t doubt it,” she hits back, grabs him by his forearms to draw him closer, all the way in against her. 

“Hey, you just say the word and I am happy to show you the size of my ego.”

“Maybe you could just shut up and kiss me.”

His heart leaps in his chest. God—yes.

He moves in slowly, takes her face in his hands with his mouth open and his breath hot on her face. He leans his forehead against hers as he slides a leg in between hers, hitches her up. He lets the growing tension between them fill up the silence, need racing furiously through every nerve ending. 

“The kids’ll be back soon,” he whispers against her cheek as his words fan out warm across her lips. 

She sucks in a breath but doesn’t miss a beat.

“Yeah, well, then you’d better hurry up and start letting me stroke that ego.”

Oh, he’s in love with her. He loves her so much. 

And that is the only thing he can think about when he finally slides his lips against hers.

He tries to keep a slow pace, working his lips over hers with tender and practiced care. But Joyce licks at him, gives back to him everything he could possibly want and more. His need for her burns deep within him and he can't help the way his fingers tighten against her neck and pull her closer. When he finally slips his tongue past her lips to the inside of her hot mouth she makes the most delicious noise. She hikes a leg up to his hip for better reach—nearly climbs his huge frame to meet him with each stroke of their lips, still moving furiously in tandem, working at each other in the most familiar and yet perfectly new way. 

Hopper can feel her trying to get even closer to him so he lets go of her face to grab under her thighs and lift her up. He presses her back against the far wall of the hallway and she wraps her legs around his waist. He makes use of her slight distraction to trail his lips down to her jaw and with better access to her throat, he takes full advantage. As he presses his lips at the curve of her collarbone he can hear her short and uneven breaths coming in hot against his ear. 

“You’d better start walking me towards that bedroom or I swear to god Hop…” she trails off, starts plucking at the buttons on the front of his flannel shirt, pulls it free of the jeans it had been so nicely tucked into. 

When he doesn’t move, she nips at the flesh under his right ear and his whole body shivers.

“Whatever you want,” he pants, snaps out of the temporary daze she’d put him in, his breath heavier with each passing moment. He pulls at her t-shirt, lifts it up and over her head before dropping it to the floor. 

He takes a long look at her, chest heaving in her pale pink bra, hair ruffled in waves around her face. She blushes, hard and fast, and he seals his mouth desperately against hers. When he manages to get his arms around her again he holds her against him as he moves them from the wall and back down towards her bedroom. She pulls at his belt buckle, works the button free, and somehow in one smooth motion gets her hand down his jeans. 

“Jesus! Joyce, warn a guy will ya?” He leans his forehead against her shoulder, takes a deep breath in before turning his head and sucking hard on the column of her throat.

“We have maybe ten minutes before the kids get back so you’d better not be getting after me about needing foreplay,” she says to him on a sigh. “Just get me into bed already.”

“I could if you’d stop distracting me!” Hopper wants to sound annoyed but he also wants to get her naked, so he doesn’t fight it.

In his haste to move quickly, he slams her body against the closed bedroom door a little harder than he means to. He pours a deep I’m sorry into her mouth as he kisses her, fumbles awkwardly for the door handle. When he’s unsuccessful and mumbles a soft yet frustrated fuck against her skin, she laughs at him, brings his mouth back to hers and kisses him hard.

“Well,” she ponders on a breath, “I guess we can make do in the hallway…”

Hopper kisses her again at that, nods into their kiss and then—

“—Oh, please god, don’t!” 

Hopper and Joyce startle apart at the unexpected voice, jaws going slack at the sight of the kids standing there in the hallway.

They must have dropped the Wheelers off at home on their way back, as it’s just El, Will, and Jonathan that have returned. And like some sort of twilight zone nightmare, the two of them have been caught—almost literally—with their pants down by their children. Joyce is still wrapped up in Hopper’s arms as they look back from the kids to one another, unsure of what they should do next. A small smile forms on Hopper’s lips and Joyce doesn’t look away, tries hard to stop the smile forming on her own from spreading.

“Are you two serious right now?” Jonathan continues, his harsh tone snaps their focus back to the kids again. 

When Jonathan realizes the full state of their undress, he looks like his eyes might bug out of his head. He leans over and covers El’s eyes with his hand then squeezes his own eyes shut, too. All Will manages is a small giggle.

“Could you please wait for us in the living room?” Hopper finally says, slowly bringing Joyce back down to stand on her own. “Your Mom and I will be out in two minutes.”

Jonathan huffs loudly, but he does his best to shuffle the two younger kids out of the hallway. When they’re out of sight, Hopper reaches down for Joyce’s discarded t-shirt and hands it over to her, starts doing up the buttons of his own shirt. He’s wondering how big an apology he owes her when he hears the small rustle of her pulling her shirt back over her head. She clears her throat.

“I’ll go apologize to the kids,” he tells her, tucking his shirt back into his jeans. He fastens his belt buckle back into place but then he doesn’t move. 

“Hey, what is it?” 

“I… uh, I’m just gonna need a couple of minutes,” he stammers, but smirks at her while he tries to adjust his uncomfortably tight jeans. 

“Oh,” she smiles, slipping her arms around him, “I’m sorry about that,” she whispers against his jaw. 

“Yeah, real sorry,” he teases, grabbing for her hands and stepping back from her. “That’s not helping.” 

He places a chaste kiss to the crown of her head. 

“I’ll go talk to the kids,” she tells him, “you can join us when you’re ready.”

“You think the kids are gonna kill me?”

“No, the boys love you. They are definitely going to make you work for it though,” she says, wrapping her arms up under his and pulls him down into a hug, any regard for personal space out the window again.

“I’m fine with that. I can let them know my intentions are pure,” he whispers into her hair.

“Hop?” She asks quietly, face against his chest.

“Yeah?”

“Not too pure though, right?”

“Yeah, no—I’m definitely still thinking about getting you naked,” he whispers, leans down to kiss her again. 

She moves away from him then, but he hesitates, gives her a sad look as they break apart. Joyce doesn’t acknowledge it at first but turns back before she gets to the end of the hall.

“Hop? I’m… in this with you, too,” she says, echoing his earlier sentiments. 

“You are?” 

“Yes,” she laughs at his surprise. “I’m glad we fought. It kinda felt like we were kids again, you know?”

He smiles at that, big and bright at her.

“Yeah, it did,” he agrees, nostalgia flooding his senses as he watches as Joyce turns back for the living room.

“Let’s get this over with!” He whispers loudly after her, “I wanna keep fighting with you some more!”

She flips him off as she goes, doesn’t turn back around to look at him. Hopper has a ridiculous smile plastered on his face as he watches her turn the corner into the living room. 

Suddenly, he can hear the barrage of questions Jonathan, Will and El are hurling at her. He’s grateful for her taking the first hit on this as feelings of dread start slowly filling him up. He wonders, for a moment, what’s happened to him that he’s suddenly so intimidated by these teenagers. He’d do anything for any one of them. And if the boys were to ask him to stay away from Joyce there’s a split second where he thinks he might just agree to it. But then he remembers what it feels like to really have her and he knows better of it.

“So, were you even gonna tell us?” He hears Jonathan ask. He’s not shouting though, and Hopper is surprised.

“Tell you what, exactly?” Joyce replies, in that calm, motherly tone of hers. 

“That the two of you were together! I would think maybe that would be something you might want to run by us.”

“Hey, listen to me. I really am sorry that you had to find us… like that. It’s definitely not going down as one of my finer parenting moments. But until today there was nothing to tell. Okay?

“You kids are the most important things in my life. Do you understand me? You will always come first. But it’s important for you to understand that Hopper and I are adults. And sometimes there are going to be private things that we aren’t going to share with you. But I promise I will always tell you the important stuff. Always. You got it?”

“But you are together?” Jonathan’s got a tone to his voice Hopper can’t quite read. And he’s not sure if he is ready to hear her response. 

“Yes,” she confirms. 

And Hopper has to hold in a chuckle, can still hear her angry voice screaming you and me are not something at him from minutes before ringing in his ears. 

“But—

“—it’s non negotiable, Jonathan. We can talk about what it means for all of us. But, this isn’t something we’re gonna bargain on.”

There’s something about the way she protects whatever it is that the two of them might be, all while making sure the kids know where they stand with her, that sobers him up in the most unbelievably real way. And maybe he had been a little bit scared of the way she might try to hide him or their relationship from their kids; knew it would be an easy out for her to take if she’d wanted one. Everything has shifted so quickly, he would have understood if she’d wanted more time to sort it out. But if she isn’t going to shy away from it, then he shouldn’t either. He squares his shoulders and walks the last few steps towards the kitchen. 

“Mom, we just want you to be happy,” Hopper hears Will say.

“Yeah. Happy,” El echoes. 

As Hopper turns the corner into the living room, Joyce is hugging the younger two kids to her small frame. Jonathan is brooding from the far corner of the room. He looks up at Hopper, apprehensive, but manages an eye roll accompanied by a smirk. Hopper decides to take what he can get with the kid. When he looks back at Joyce, she squeezes her eyes shut and shakes her head at him, buries a smile into the top of El’s head as she pulls the two kids closer. He can’t help but smile back.

And for the first time in a long time, Hopper is hopeful when he thinks about the future—his future with the four of them. He can imagine it clear as day, no dark cataclysmic vortexes in sight. 

—

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this last year but wasn’t brave enough to share it. Nothing like waiting until the last minute to post before the new season happens and pushes this out of cannon. But we can hope! Thanks for reading. Here’s to season 3, all!
> 
> Also, for those interested: Hawking Radiation is radiation released by black holes that will reduce their mass and and energy. Essentially it’s like black hole evaporation. If this happens, the black hole is expected to shrink and ultimately vanish. ;)


End file.
